He got up and with his hands behind his back he seemed to be lashing himself into a fury with his coat-tail.
"The whole thing is one-sided and artificial and absurd.

Bad enough for men, but fatal for women.

Any system that unfits them for their proper functions--" "And do we know--have we decided--yet--what they are ?" Miss Quincey was anxious to sustain her part in the dialogue with credit.
He stared, not at the distance but at her.
"Why, surely," he said more gently, "to be women first--to be wives and mothers." She drew her cape a little closer round her and turned from him with half-shut eyes.

She seemed at once to be protecting herself against his theory and blinding her sight to her own perishing and thwarted woman-hood.
"All Nature is against it," he said.
"Nature ?" she repeated feebly.
"Yes, Nature; and she'll go her own way in spite of all the systems that ever were.

Don't you know---you are a teacher, so you ought to know--that overstrain of the higher faculties is sometimes followed by astonishing demonstrations on the part of Nature ?" Miss Quincey replied that no cases of the kind had come under _her_ notice.
"Well--your profession ought to go hand-in-hand with mine.